There's a beautifully disturbing undercurrent of change in Brian Friel's "Dancing at Lughnasa."
It's 1936 in rural Ireland, and 7-year-old Michael goes to school now. Radios are displacing gramophones as a source of entertainment. And the world order...

"An autobiographical fact," the Irish playwright Brian Friel once remarked, "may be a lie and no less true for all of that."
Frank McCourt, who died Sunday just a month shy of his 79th birthday, would have appreciated Friel's sentiment, for "Angela's...

Family lore isn’t just innocently passed down. It’s carefully scripted, regularly rehearsed and slyly refurbished when needed. Ever notice how the stories with the slipperiest facts tend to get revived most often as if in fear that their protective...